Chapter 4: The Luna Is Replaced

(Daciana POV)

The name “Conri” fell from Louve’s bloody mouth, and the great hall became so silent that even fear seemed afraid to breathe.

Every face turned toward Hrolf, but the old Beta did not move, blink, or show the smallest crack in his calm mask.

For one sharp second, I thought the truth had finally torn through Ashina’s perfect web and shown everyone where the poison truly lived.

Then Hrolf smiled like a man who had waited years for the knife to be placed in his hand.

“She says Conri because Daciana made her carry messages to him,” Hrolf said, and his voice sounded steady enough to fool frightened wolves.

The pack began whispering again, and I watched truth slip away from me like water poured into hungry dust.

“No,” Louve gasped from the floor, her fingers still pointing toward Hrolf while blood stained her lips and chin.

The healer tried to hold her down, but Louve fought weakly, as if death itself were less frightening than leaving the lie alive.

“Hrolf,” she whispered again, forcing the name through blood, fear, and whatever poison burned inside her failing body.

Hrolf’s face changed only for a heartbeat, but I saw it, and so did Farkas, whose eyes sharpened like old blades.

Before Louve could speak more, Boris stepped forward and blocked the crowd’s view with his wide body and loud voice.

“The witness is poisoned and confused,” Boris declared, though his hands shook slightly around the scroll he had used to condemn me.

My wolf growled low inside me because fear had a scent, and Boris smelled like a man standing too close to his own grave.

Bardolph stared at Louve, then at Hrolf, then at me, and I saw doubt return to his face like a wound reopening.

For one painful moment, hope reached for me, foolish and trembling, because the man who rejected me might finally see the trap.

Ashina noticed his hesitation before anyone else did, and her body swayed beautifully, like a flower breaking under invisible pain.

“My Alpha,” she whispered, clutching her wounded wrist as she stepped closer to Bardolph with tears shining in her eyes.

Bardolph turned to her at once, and my hope died the moment his hand went to her shoulder.

“She is using a dying servant to drag loyal men down with her,” Ashina cried, and the hall softened toward her again.

I hated how easily they believed softness, because a gentle voice could hide more cruelty than any raised sword.

Farkas moved near Louve and bent low, trying to hear the words she struggled to form through shaking lips.

Louve grabbed his sleeve, and her terrified eyes found mine through the forest of legs, robes, and accusing faces.

“Run,” she mouthed silently, and the word struck me harder than Bardolph’s rejection because it came from a dying woman’s truth.

Then her eyes rolled back, and the healer shouted for space as her body went limp against the black stone floor.

The pack erupted again, but the sound became distant in my ears as my toes tightened around the key Farkas had dropped.

I was still chained at the wrists, still surrounded by guards, and still broken by a rejection that burned through my bones.

But for the first time since Ashina’s first lie, I understood that survival was no longer shameful.

It was war.

(Bardolph POV)

I looked at Louve’s still body and felt the room tilt beneath the weight of too many truths fighting too many lies.

My wolf was bleeding inside me from rejecting Daciana, and every breath carried the taste of a mistake I could not name.

Hrolf stood beside Boris, calm as stone, while Farkas watched him with the cold suspicion of a hunter following old tracks.

Daciana stood in chains before me, pale and proud, with pain in her eyes that made my rejected bond scream.

I wanted to step toward her, but Ashina leaned into my side, and the hall watched me like a pack waiting for weakness.

An Alpha could doubt in private, but before wounded warriors, dead patrols, and frightened families, doubt looked like betrayal.

“Take Louve to the healer’s chamber and keep her alive,” I ordered, because her next words might decide the fate of everyone.

Farkas nodded once, but Hrolf spoke before the guards could lift the poisoned servant from the floor.

“My Alpha, the pack needs certainty tonight, not more delay while traitors use confusion to weaken your rule,” Hrolf said.

His words landed in the crowd like stones dropped into water, and the ripples spread through frightened faces and angry whispers.

I knew what he wanted before he said it, and my wolf snarled because every path led deeper into blood.

“The Luna’s seat cannot remain empty while Blackfang burns,” Boris added, his voice too eager for a man discussing sacred law.

My eyes moved to Daciana before I could stop them, and her face became so still that it frightened me.

She knew.

I knew.

Ashina knew too, because her fingers tightened around my sleeve with the hunger of someone reaching for a crown.

“Do not do this,” Farkas warned, stepping forward with Louve’s blood still staining his hand.

Hrolf turned toward him sharply, and the old tension between them finally showed its teeth before the entire pack.

“You forget your place, Farkas,” Hrolf said, and the threat inside his voice was no longer hidden.

“I remember my place better than men who dress ambition as loyalty,” Farkas answered, and the hall held its breath.

For one dangerous second, my elders looked ready to tear each other apart while my mate stood chained between their secrets.

Then Ashina sank to her knees before me.

The movement shocked the hall into silence, and even I froze because she looked so small beneath the torches.

“My Alpha, I want nothing from you except the safety of Blackfang,” she said, though tears made every word shine.

Daciana gave a bitter laugh, soft but sharp enough to cut through the room like silver.

Ashina flinched perfectly, and the pack saw a wounded servant frightened by a fallen Luna instead of a snake crawling toward power.

“If the pack needs me to serve until a true Luna is chosen, then I will serve,” Ashina whispered, bowing her head.

My wolf recoiled from the word "Luna" near her, but my mind saw wounded children, burned borders, and warriors waiting for command.

Boris lifted his chin, as if the whole performance had reached the exact line he had rehearsed in his private thoughts.

“By emergency law, the Alpha may appoint a temporary Luna during war, betrayal, or loss of the mate bond,” Boris announced.

I stared at him, because hearing the law spoken aloud made the next choice feel less like mine and more like a trap closing.

Daciana looked at me then, and the hatred in her eyes was not wild, weak, or broken.

It was awake.

“If you place her in my seat, Bardolph, you will not only lose your mate,” she said, her voice steady enough to shame me.

The guards tightened around her, but she did not lower her gaze, and I felt every word carve itself into my chest.

“You will lose the last woman in this pack who would have died to protect your soul.”

Her words struck something buried beneath my rage, and for a heartbeat, the hall vanished around us.

I remembered her hands washing blood from my father’s ring after the old Alpha died.

I remembered her standing between me and a silver arrow during the Riverbend battle.

I remembered her laughing beneath moonlight, telling me power meant nothing if I forgot the people beneath my throne.

Then Ashina sobbed quietly at my feet, and the present returned with smoke, blood, whispers, and judgment.

I hated myself before I even opened my mouth.

“Until this threat is ended, Ashina will serve as acting Luna of Blackfang,” I said, and the words tasted like ash.

(Daciana POV)

The hall did not cheer immediately, because even cruel people needed one moment to understand how deeply cruelty had won.

Then Boris struck his staff against the stone, and the first forced cheer rose from a corner where Hrolf’s loyal warriors stood.

More voices followed, some loud with fear, some soft with doubt, and some silent because shame had closed their throats.

Ashina stood slowly, and Bardolph helped her rise with the same hand that had once lifted me beside his throne.

That hand destroyed me more than the words did.

I watched the maid step toward the Luna seat, wrapped in my shawl, wearing my pain like a jewel.

She sat down carefully, pretending to tremble, but her eyes found mine across the hall with bright, merciless pleasure.

I wanted to scream until the roof split open and the moon itself came down to judge every liar standing before me.

Instead, I smiled.

It was not a happy smile, not a brave smile, and not the smile of the woman they thought they had broken.

It was the first smile of someone who had nothing left to protect except the truth and the fire inside her own blood.

Ashina’s pleasure faltered when she saw it, because a beaten woman should cry, not look like a storm learning its name.

“Take the former Luna to the lower cells until exile is prepared,” Hrolf ordered, speaking before Bardolph could choose mercy or regret.

Bardolph turned sharply toward him, but the command had already moved through the guards like poison through a cup.

The guards pulled me backward, and the chains around my wrists cut deeper as the pack parted to let my shame pass.

I looked at Bardolph one last time, not because I wanted him to save me, but because I wanted him to remember this moment.

He met my eyes, and I saw it there at last.

Regret.

Not enough to stop the guards.

Not enough to pull Ashina from my seat.

Not enough to rebuild the bond he had broken beneath the red moon.

But enough to tell me that one day, when truth finally came for him, it would not come gently.

The lower cells were colder than the servant wing, with walls damp enough to make every breath taste like earth and rust.

The guards chained me to the far wall, then left without speaking, because cowards rarely wasted words on the people they hurt.

For several minutes, I sat in darkness, breathing through the pain of the broken bond and the ache in my wrists.

Then a stone shifted near the corner of the cell.

I lifted my head slowly, my wolf suddenly alert beneath all the grief that had nearly drowned her.

A thin hand reached through a hidden crack in the wall, holding a strip of cloth wrapped around something small and sharp.

“Take it,” a woman whispered from the other side, her voice weak but urgent enough to stir my dying hope.

I crawled forward as far as the chains allowed, stretching my fingers until the cloth brushed my skin.

“Who are you?” I whispered, closing my hand around the hidden object before the darkness could steal it back.

“The woman Ashina replaced before she learned to steal crowns,” the voice answered, and my blood turned cold.

I unwrapped the cloth with shaking fingers and found a small silver file, a black feather, and half of a broken royal seal.

The seal carried the mark of Northridge.

My heart pounded so hard that I forgot the pain in my bones and the cold beneath my knees.

“Conri is not your enemy,” the woman whispered, and the words made the darkness around me feel suddenly alive.

Before I could answer, heavy footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor, and the hidden hand vanished through the crack.

I shoved the file beneath my torn robe just as torchlight spilled across the cell bars.

Bardolph stood outside my prison.

For one breath, neither of us spoke, because there were too many dead promises lying between his eyes and mine.

He looked at my chains, my bleeding wrists, and the bruise darkening my cheek where a guard had dragged me too hard.

Pain crossed his face, raw and almost human, but I no longer trusted pain that arrived after betrayal had already eaten everything.

“I came to make sure they did not hurt you,” he said, and the softness in his voice nearly made me laugh.

I lifted my chained hands slowly, letting the torchlight show him exactly what his mercy looked like in iron.

“You rejected me, replaced me, and locked me beneath the house I helped rule,” I said, keeping every word sharp and clear.

Bardolph gripped the bars until metal groaned beneath his fingers, and his golden eyes filled with something too late to save me.

“I had no choice,” he said, but the lie sounded weaker in the dark than it had before the pack.

I moved closer to the bars, ignoring the way the chains pulled at my torn skin.

“You had a choice every time she cried, every time I spoke, and every time your wolf begged you to listen.”

He closed his eyes, and for the first time, I saw Bardolph as something smaller than an Alpha.

I saw a man afraid to admit that his pride had made him easy to use.

Then his eyes opened, and the Alpha mask returned, though it no longer fit him as perfectly as before.

“At dawn, you will be taken to the eastern border and left beyond Blackfang lands,” he said.

The words should have frightened me, but the silver file hidden beneath my robe warmed against my skin like a secret promise.

I stepped back from the bars and looked at the man who had once been my home.

“At dawn, Bardolph, you will learn that the woman you threw away was never the weakest wolf in your pack.”

His jaw tightened, and something like fear moved behind his eyes as if he had finally heard the stranger in my voice.

Before he could answer, a scream tore through the corridor from the upper floors, followed by the violent ringing of the warning bell.

Bardolph spun toward the sound, and a guard came running down the steps with terror written across his bloodless face.

“Alpha,” the guard gasped, dropping to one knee before the cell door, “the new Luna has vanished from your chamber.”

Bardolph went completely still.

The guard swallowed hard, then lifted a torn piece of blue fabric that I knew belonged to my stolen shawl.

“She left blood on your bed,” he whispered, “and a message written on the wall says Daciana took her revenge.”